Castoriadis’s encounter with autopoiesis was a decisive factor for his philosophical trajectory. Its influence can be seen on four interconnected levels of his thought: his reconsideration of Greek sources for his later interpretation of trans-regional being as self-creating; his rethinking of objective knowledge; his ventures into philosophical cosmology; and his re-evaluation of the living being, especially in light of his dialogue with Varela. In brief, Castoriadis’s engagement with autopoiesis was significant for his shift towards an ontology of radical physis. His shift to radical physis does not point so much to a rejection of the project of autonomy, however, as, paradoxically, its simultaneous radicalization and relativization.

“Are living beings extended autopoietic systems? An embodied reply,” makes the case for grounding the autopoietic definition of living beings to the discrete bodies of organisms rather than to autopoietic systems that extend beyond the organisms into their environments. They attempt this grounding by amending a clause to the original formulation of autopoiesis that identifies living beings with their bodies, and then they explicitly define “bodies”. This commentary makes the case that bodily grounding can be derived from molecular autopoiesis by taking the molecular domain seriously, and no new amendment is required.

Key words: autopoiesis, embodiment, organisms.

Predictive processing (PP) approaches to the mind are increasingly popular in the cognitive sciences. This surge of interest is accompanied by a proliferation of philosophical arguments, which seek to either extend or oppose various aspects of the emerging framework. In particular, the question of how to position predictive processing with respect to enactive and embodied cognition has become a topic of intense debate. While these arguments are certainly of valuable scientific and philosophical merit, they risk underestimating the variety of approaches gathered under the predictive label. Here, we first present a basic review of neuroscientific, cognitive, and philosophical approaches to PP, to illustrate how these range from solidly cognitivist applications – with a firm commitment to modular, internalistic mental representation – to more moderate views emphasizing the importance of ‘body-representations’, and finally to those which fit comfortably with radically enactive, embodied, and dynamic theories of mind. Any nascent predictive processing theory (e.g., of attention or consciousness) must take into account this continuum of views, and associated theoretical commitments. As a final point, we illustrate how the Free Energy Principle (FEP) attempts to dissolve tension between internalist and externalist accounts of cognition, by providing a formal synthetic account of how internal ‘representations’ arise from autopoietic self-organization. The FEP thus furnishes empirically productive process theories (e.g., predictive processing) by which to guide discovery through the formal modelling of the embodied mind.

Key words: Predictive processing, embodied cognition, interoception, active inference, connectionism, computationalism, enactivism.

This paper has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it suggests ways of making autopoietic theory more precise and more operational for concrete communication analysis. I discuss concepts such as distinction, system, bound- ary, environment, perturbation, and compen- sation. The explication of the concepts is ba- sed on catastrophe theory, and in order to make them operational I emphasise their affinity to traditional semiotics and communi- cation theory. On the other hand I propose changes to the semiotic tradition in order to incorporate insights from autopoietic theory, namely that the human condition is characte- rised by the phenomenon of self-reference and therefore also by the unavoidability of para- doxes. Firstly, this means that truth cannot be a basic semiotic concept; instead the notion of stability is suggested. Secondly, in order to act in a paradoxical context, we need to unfold the paradox in time, which again calls for a dynamic theory of meaning.

Villalobos and Razeto-Barry propose a theory of living individuals that includes both considerations about autopoietic systems and about material individuals. However, I think that their characterisation of individuality is problematic and would not be useful to account for living individuals.

Key words: individual bodies, autopoiesis.

In this paper we argue for the possibilities of applying the concept of autopoiesis to the information systems of modern organizations. Modern organizations in today’s rapidly changing, turbulent and complex environment are virtual, open, heterarchic and autopoietic. The main question we try to address in this paper is how to support these organizations with an adequate information system. We show that it is possible to develop autopoietic information systems that should be able to respond to the challenges of modern organizations.

Key words: autopoiesis, information system, organization

Attention is paid to the similarities between pragmatic philosophy and symbolic interactionism on the one hand, and radical constructive epistemologies on the other. Referring to the work of George Herbert Mead, symbolic interactionism has frequently been designated as a naive and idealistic sociological theory promoting the liberty of the individual by the use of the metaphysically echoing concepts as “the self”, “the I and the Me” and “taking the role of the other”. In reading the work of Mead closely, however, one is struck by the theoretic nature of these concepts which is not always clearly mentioned in symbolic interactionism. Furthermore, the work of Mead treats very similar topics and in a very similar way to the work of present theorists on autopoiesis and auto‐organisation and its origins in the relation between individuals and society. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest the work of Mead as a possible frame of reference for the elaboration of present discussions on the matter.

I agree with Villalobos and Razeto-Barry’s main argument that living beings are autopoietic bodies. I suggest, however, that if we apply this definition of life to a consideration of living beings as dissipative systems, we find opportunities for further refinement. I propose that living bodies are autopoietic bodies that maintain themselves by using their boundaries to control their constituent processes of dissipative adaptation.

Key words: dissipative systems, autopoiesis, living bodies.

Social Systems Theory has a long and distinguished history. It has progressed from a mechanical model of social processes, to a biological model, to a process model, to models that encompass chaos, complexity, evolution and autopoiesis. Social systems design methodology is ready for the twenty-first century. From General Systems Theory’s early days of glory and hubris, through its days of decline and disparagement, through its diaspora into different disciplines, systems theory is today living up to its early expectations.

Key words: systemic model, roots of systems theory, branches of systems theory, history of systems theory.

This paper analyzes Humberto Maturana’s understanding abour the objectivity of scientific knowledge through a critical dialogue with other contemporary epistemological constructivist theories. The two subjects discussed are the relations between knowledge-reality and knowledge-society, which are the most common senses that guide the philosophical discussion about objectivity. This paper also includes a systematization of the main theses of Matuana’s biology of cognition, and a brief evaluation of the role of the notion of “autopoiesis” for the understanding of objectivity.

Key words: autopoiesis, objectivity, constructivism, epistemology, humberto maturana.